Letters From Mickey pt 1

Mickey was ten and his brother James was eight. James talked a lot and tried to impress Mickey. Mickey was strong, thoughtful and quiet. 

James was running ahead of Mickey on a marshy path along the river. He held a stick. He was using the stick as a gun. He was telling Mickey of all the animals he was going to kill. He was telling Mickey how he was going to win awards for being the best shot anyone had ever seen. He was telling Mickey he was going to protect the house now that their dad was gone. He told Mickey if he wanted to, he could shoot him.

James stops in his tracks and points his gun at Mickey. James asks him if he's scared. Mickey doesn't say anything. Mickey stares at James. Hard. He doesn't blink. James tries to act stoic, but wavers. He drops his eyes, his gun follows. 

Mickey stepped past James and continued on the marshy  path along the river. 

1 second. 2 seconds. 3 seconds. 

James was back in lead telling Mickey the only food they were going to eat would be the animals he'd shot and dragged home. James rounded a bend and was out of site. Mickey could hear James talking to himself and making the sounds of a gun. 

Silence. 

Mickey assumed James was hiding. He wanted to try and scare him. 

Mickey kept walking and James jumped out from behind the bend waving his stick in Mickey's face. From the stick hung a pair of women's underwear. 

James danced around Mickey and laughed maniacally. He asked if he'd just found the spot where Mickey brought his girlfriends. With one swift move, Mickey grabbed the stick and tripped James. He was on top of James rubbing the underwear in James' face. James was screaming. He wriggled free and ran down the path. Mickey chased after him. 

James stops in his tracks. He's gone white. Mickey bumps into him. James bends and starts throwing up. Mickey looks at James, then down the path. 

A naked woman lies face down in the marsh. Dead.

Mickey doesn't look away.

Excuses.

Writer's write. Everyday. No matter what. Don't stop, can't stop, never stop. That's the difference between writers and wannabes.

But what if they can't?

They always can.

But what if they can't? Maybe they break their hand.

They use a dictaphone. 

What if they break both their hands?

They hire someone to type while they dictate. 

What if they're shy and don't want to share their work until it's done?

Everybody trusts somebody. 

Writer's block. It has a name for a reason.

Writer's block exists to make wannabes feel better about themselves. 

This all seems very extreme. Some of the greatest writer's in history struggled. What'd they do!?

They wrote about it.

Peaks and Valleys

My head's buzzing and my fingers are furiously clacking away at the keys. The rush of life is hitting me like a tidal wave.

I think if I wrote an autobiography it would be called "Peaks and Valleys" because that seems like the best way to sum up my life. My personality. I've mellowed quite a bit in the last few years and am not as extreme as I once was, but I don't think I'll ever escape the highs and lows that seem to follow me. And when I think about it, I don't ever want to escape them. 

By Brian Andreas

I once had a garden filled with flowers that grew only on dark thoughts, but they need constant attention and one day I decided I had better things to do.

Storytime

I think about my family a lot. I think about my friends a lot. I think about the life I'm living and how within a matter of weeks, it is completely different than anything I have ever known. 

I met my match and moved away. Without blinking an eye. Whenever I was seeing someone new, my sister would ask me if he's "the one." I would snort some sort of response and usually say no. Mainly because I had no idea what she was talking about it. I don't think I believed it. Deep inside of me I felt I would love many people, but never feel 100% connected to any of them. I would always have one foot in, and one foot out. And that was fine with me. I didn't see myself settling down. I didn't want to get married. Kids weren't an option, I was going to get a dog when I was big. Then something happened. I met the one. 

Brad came into my office to ask me a question about work. I'm pretty sure I got red in the face. We talked. He left. Instantly a thought popped into my mind that should have scared me, but instead calmed me. 

He was the man I would marry.

He was nothing like anybody I had ever been with. He wasn't part of a scene. He wore adidas and crocs. He had a silver ring on his middle finger. He had a huge mustache. He had a girlfriend. 

I anticipated the moments he would fly by my office door. Sometimes I'd look, sometimes I'd pretend to be transfixed by my work. I soon realized I had an incredibly hard reality I had to face. The relationship I was in, was over. I think it had been over for quite some time, I just didn't want to admit it. I lived in an odd dream world. I had my life. He had his life. We had our life. The latter became less and less. I brought it up. We broke up. I wondered if I had done the right thing. The last thing in the world I wanted to do, was make someone I loved hurt. And there was no shortage of hurt.

Brad and I started spending more and more time together. There was a force that couldn't be denied, even if we wanted to. I had left one dream world and slid right into another. The circumstances were far from favourable and no matter how hard we tried to ignore them, they kept making themselves known. We hid from work. We hid from his girlfriend. We hid from our reality. Then reality came crashing down harder than either of us had expected. His girlfriend read his emails. She was frantic. She threatened suicide. He flew home for the weekend and when he returned, she was with him. I rounded a corner at work and was face to face with the pain I was a part of. I felt sick. I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. 

We weren't able to talk for a week, but I saw the both of them everyday. I tried to convince myself that what I felt wasn't real and that he was just using me. Somehow this made it easier. I got a phone call on the weekend. It was him. He was able to get away and only had minutes. She held his phone, read his emails, never left his side. I didn't blame her. Her whole world came down on her in a matter of seconds as my dream world had come down on me. He wanted to know what I thought. Words couldn't describe how he felt for hurting me day after day. He wanted to know if I'd wait. No games. I'm too old for that. I told him it wasn't over between us and no matter how hard I tried to convince myself that it was, I knew in my heart we had years ahead of us. A sigh of relief. He'd contact me again when he could. 

Secret. Secret. It all had to be kept secret. 

They broke up, a couple times. She wouldn't let it happen. I didn't blame her. She was scared. She had moved across the country to be with the person that took care of her. Now that person was moving on and she'd have to take care of herself. No one can grow if they don't have reason to. If someone's content watching the world go by from under a glass roof, why would they ever want to join what seems so hard? After that, we were together every second. I had doubts and tried again to convince myself he wasn't real. I couldn't have met someone like him. Someone that wanted to be with me. All the time. Then he flew half way around the world with me to visit a friend and embark on two weeks of chaotic travel after just having finished a job that nearly made all his hair fall out. Literally. I think he loved me. 

We got back from holiday. He went home. I finished my job. We decided I should move down to be with him. I packed up my apartment, made driving arrangements, and left before the sun came up. My landlord didn't notice for a week. Even though I had left her the keys and a note.

After months of adjusting, I feel happy. Secure. Confident. We're looking to buy a house. We're thinking about renovations on that house. When someone asks if we're married, we say might as well be. I don't like drinking anymore. I go to bed early. I grocery shop and have supper ready for when Brad gets home. We have a cat. I'm going to get my dog when we have a house. We've talked about baby names. I'm an adult. Something that scared the hell out of me all my life, has suddenly crept up on me in the most natural of ways. And although I still have moments of panic and bouts of melancholy, I know this is the road my life is supposed to be traveling. For the first time, it makes sense.

Now. If I could just make some friends......

Life's list

I have a life's list of things to do. Learn how to drive a standard, see a moose, go to Japan, see quicksand, etc. On that list it also says, "Get to know Shane better." Out of hardship, some good always comes. I believe this.

Long pause. Deep sigh. Eyes welling with tears. 

My brother is very sick. He just told me he's sicker than any of us originally thought and I can't get two words he said out of my head. "It's grim." They're playing over and over like a song you only know a few words to. 

Shane and I have never been close. Not that we ever fought or had bad blood flowing between us, it's just that he's five years older than me. We were never in the same school. We were never into the same things at the same time. We never shared friends. And he's an old soul. I've always said he belongs in small town Alberta with a wife and kids to support and love. He likes being able to go to the local pub and see the same people night after night. He likes going to the corner store and chatting with the employees. He like knowing his neighbours and being known. His memory is like a sponge. He sucks it all in and holds it. It's a blessing and a curse. 

Since we found out he was sick, the whole family has gotten tighter. Even though I live far away, I feel closer to my mom, dad, sister and brother than I ever have. This "sick" has pulled us together in a way you know can only happen when tragedy is involved. Hmm, maybe that's not fair. My nephew had the same effect. When he was born, it's like the rope that kept us all together, was cinched. And now, it's being cinched even tighter. 

I can't stop thinking what it will be like if my brother is no longer here. It's so overwhelming I immediately panic. The hardest part is knowing that you will be fine. We will all be fine. We all continue to: wake up, eat, work, talk, sleep, repeat. Life will go on. Your life doesn't stop when another does. And if love is involved, you can guarantee the person you lost wouldn't want it any other way. I heard someone say they didn't know who had it harder. The person that passed away, or the people they left behind. 

My brain is overloaded and heavy, because like all bad news it hits hardest at the beginning. From that point on though, you must make a conscious decision as to which path you're going to take. Positivity, or negativity. We all choose positivity. There is absolutely no gain when negativity is involved. The most positive person throughout this whole thing has been Shane. He's smart. Very smart. He takes things one step at a time. We all know the next course of action and there's no point dwelling on anything beyond that. Because we just don't know. I wasn't sure how he'd deal with everything when I first heard he had cancer, but now I'm convinced. He's one of the strongest people I know and if anyone's going to beat their "sick," it's him. 

HIgh up above

I want a dog. I want a house. I want a new kitchen knife set. I want a solarium. I want a new pair of boots. I want to go to Hawaii. I want to take pottery classes. I want to take Spanish classes. I want a new bed. I want my old couch. I want some new clothes. I want to go to karaoke with my brother at the pub. I want my brother find true love. I want my brother to get married. I want my brother to have kids. I want my brother to own a house. I want my brother to go to Hawaii. I want my brother to ride his horse. I want my brother to go golfing. I want my brother to go to the hockey game. I want my brother to laugh and really mean it. I want my brother to sleep at night. 

I need absolutely nothing except my brother to be here this time next year. And the year after that. And the year after that. And the year after that. And the year after that. And the year after that. And the year after that. And the year after that. And the year after that. And the year after that.